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Left Unity

What are we building? What are we fighting for? I’m no longer sure. It seems to me that the left has become the most complex and convoluted system for lobbying the government that has ever existed.

While communities have come under prolonged and sustained attack, completely ripped apart for generations now, it looks to me that we are arguing over what kind of biscuits to bring to the revolution, and lets not get started on the tea, or we will be here till tea time.

Where is the vision? The ambition? The hope and the passion? Where is the strategy in acting as a glorified lobby group?

This week we witnessed the Greek people vote oxi (no to me and you) to austerity, and from the response you would think they had just smashed the capitalist hegemony of the globe. I think it is great that they did mind you but I don’t want to look for Greece to hope, I want to look to the left in the UK to provide my people with hope.

What are we doing? Arguing over austerity and like Canute trying to turn back the tide, or in our case convince the Tory party or the Labour party to change course? To take pity on us poor peasants and allow us to have a little bit more of the harvest next year? Or to find a heart and stop sending us to our deaths with a stroke of their pens?

In the meantime how insignificant are the left becoming? Take Left Unity for example, the party I am involved with – it is trying to emulate and act like a traditional party. Like it stands any chance of beating these guys at their own game, like it is in any position to even contemplate taking them on at their own game.

If Left Unity is to survive it needs to stop trying to be a traditional party, it needs to rip apart the rule book on what a political party is, and create something new, something new and inspiring that the people of the country can believe in and get behind!

All I am seeing is more of the same, and more of the same has got us into this mess in the first place. We know the fight to change society and the face of this country is a long one, but what are we doing to bring about that goal? A campaign here, a petition there and a march on the odd occasion.

Yes these things sometimes do have the desired effect, our masters change their course and we gain a small victory with which we may build something a little better or bigger in the future. Or people pack their things up and go home, it is all the same.

We have been operating that way for generations, and it clearly is not hitting the mark anymore. It may have had an effect in the 20th century, but we are not in the 20th century anymore. We need to adapt, we need to grow and we need to stop flogging a dead horse.

I do not have all the answers, I do not even know all the problems but please just try to think outside the box, stop trying to do what you’ve always done because it is what you’ve always done. We need to change, we need to stop pushing blame onto everything else and accept our responsibility in the downfall of the left.

We need to take stock of where we are, re-evaluate where we want to be and actually come up with something worth while. I don’t want to be in a focus group, I do not want to just be a lobbyist to whatever overlord we have that year. I want to be part of something fresh and new, new not just in name but in structure, outlook, strategy – something we can actually call revolutionary.

By revolutionary I am not saying we take out the pitch forks and storm Buckingham Palace, but something the left have completely lost the ability to do and that is talk to people on a level, talk with people, not down to them, not preaching to them but with them.

By revolutionary I’m talking about our outlook, how we conduct ourselves, what we consider to be political action. This linear form of politics is getting us no where, it isn’t even fit for this day and age.

We can hold a rally of 250,000 people and you can all pat yourselves on the back and say that it is a movement now, but rallies don’t make movements, at a rally what are you doing? Standing still listening to someone tell you something. Then you can go home, you may have learnt something but what has changed in your community? Unless you live in London, not a damn deal.

We need to be building up resistance, we need to be building up networks and be engaged in activities which are empowering to communities and empowering to ourselves, this has to be creative and it has to be local.

All political activity and the voice of opposition against these unjust, unfair and immoral acts are great but what purpose are they serving in the long run? What are we doing outside and around that which truly is creating a movement, truly is doing something beneficial to the cause?

There is this hollow shell in the place of communities up and down the country, what are we doing to solve that problem? The left is a husk, it must be great for academics that love boring meetings and arguing the finer points of the events of the Russian revolution, but what else?

Surely there has to be more to what we are doing than this? Surely there is something we are missing? Otherwise, if this is all there is, if this is as good as it gets? We may as well pack our bags and give the revolution a miss, the weather will be shit and it’s not like it’s going to be on the tele anyway.

How long are we going to be defined by which punches the government are throwing at us and which ones we are quick enough to dodge? These negative reactive campaigns which are ultimately not providing hope, not creating positivity, not rolling out change within communities. I do not want to survive anymore, where the best I can hope for is if we manage to bloody the governments nose once in a while.

We need to build something, we need to create something, we need to thrive.

You should be angry, you should be blood boiling red mist descending mad because of your council, they have shown us just how much contempt we are held in by the ruling Conservatives.

What controversial issue am I talking about? What hot-topic must I be approaching? Why the very controversial issue of child poverty, you know that controversial debate we all have over whether we think it needs to be stopped or not? No me neither.

We (well you, I would rather die than vote Conservative because it is a death sentence in it self) have to shoulder some of the blame, we returned not only a Conservative party nationally but also locally.

It really says something when you not only have a national government but a local one that doesn’t seem to think ending poverty is an issue that needs addressing. Putting aside the destructive and death sentence policies being enacted at a national level, our local representatives have gone full throttle on it too.

It really says something about the sadistic and ugly character that they must have if they seem to think it is ok that a child goes to bed at night hungry, it really says something about their nature if they do not give a shit that we are struggling to survive, getting thrown on the streets and where does that end?

It is like they just want us to roll over and die, at least that way their poverty figures would go down right? If all the poor people just jolly well went and died. It sickens me that these people make decisions over our lives, because they clearly do not give a shit what happens to us.

You might be reading this thinking “well I don’t give a monkeys, poverty doesn’t effect me” – Well it does, we all breath the same air, inhabit the same space, we all have to walk past each other on the street. You cannot hide from the many faces of poverty, it is that widespread that soon you won’t even be able to walk on by blissfully ignoring the deprived state of your fellow human beings.

You can try and shift the blame onto others, you can say it is the people in poverties fault that they are in that position (god the media like you to think that way, don’t they?). It still doesn’t change the fact that we live in a thing called society, and supposedly we live in a civilised one at that, so whether you like it or not the ugly hydra of poverty will sooner or later come back to bite you.

The ruling conservative council seem to think tackling poverty is a “political football” and that they are already doing enough to stem the rising tide of deprivation and starvation which is growing like a cancer within our communities.

We live in a county where poverty is on the rise, where 1 in 4 children live below the poverty line. What upside down logic brings you to the conclusion that if something is getting worse, you are doing enough?

The ruling council are either incompetent, lying or do not give a shit that it is happening – because if poverty is RISING whatever they are doing clearly is not WORKING.

Write an angry letter (best British way of dissent), go out on the street and let your anger known to your councillors. DO NOT STAY SILENT ANY LONGER, they take our silence for compliance and we cannot take this lying down. Get out on the streets, do some actions, create a community network and take our future into our own hands because left in theirs we may as well be signing our own death warrants.

Dangerous to mix fallacy and fantasy
when digesting the media haphazardly
acting spontaneous is a rarity
in a system of complete conformity
Why do we have austerity
when we can make poverty history
maybe it’s because we have planned poverty
like that has control on the economy
it’s a false dichotomy

you have to ask yourself
why did they lie to me
why do they lie to me

it’s all about the powerful and powerless
the powerless make you feel worthless
Which makes them appear powerful
But we got to remain hopeful
and remember we are the powerful
we number in the billions while
they remain in the hundreds

Together we roar louder than thunder
Together we can make the system go under

We have this imagination of immigration
built up through media manipulation
led to believe they’re taking over the nation
its a game of misdirection to sow division
take a dose of the truth its a hard pill to swallow
Immigration is not destroying our nation
Bankers and greed have plundered and thieved
We are all being deceived
Successive governments have ripped us off
while the culprits have been let off
The railways, energy firms, water
all of these made money for our governments
they sold them off and sold us out
Believe me truth without a shadow of doubt
Yet here we are on the precipice looking over the edge
we still blame the powerless while the hedge fund manager
gets to drive around in his million pound car
on his way to his million pound house
Now ask yourself this who writes the laws,
who funds the parties and who lives a life free of struggle?
Is it the poor family fleeing persecution or war
Or maybe the people coming here seeking a better life
Those powerless and disposed just trying to do their best
they don’t control the state of this nation
Those that control the media they have made this creation
Until we stand up and face the real enemy
that of our own government and the corporatocracy
that is destroying our democracy we will continue
to descend into lunacy…

The rising tide of food theft in Northampton an ocean that is on the rise across this whole country, is something our leaders should be completely ashamed of and if they were acting for the benefit of the poor and needy, no doubt they would be.

The Chronicle and Echo (Northampton Local Paper) publishes the details of the court, in an effort to name and shame criminals, to bring some form of justice or maybe because we all just missed the good old fashion medieval stocks.

So I was surprised, saddened and shocked to see the developments of our times, a man fined £70 for stealing MILK and CEREAL.

If someone, a HUMAN BEING gets to the point that they are forced to steal to eat, the response of any civilised society and any decent human being would be to tackle the problems causing it in the first place, hunger, poverty and of course politicians.

Our response, and this tells any watching alien civilisation just how doomed we are, our response is to fine them and give them a criminal record. Would our government, our high towered overlords prefer that these people just starve to death or lie down and die?

This is appalling and disgusting and I have read similar reports across the whole country. We are criminalising the poor and those suffering the effects of poverty, while the causes are left to fester like a cancer at the centre of our society and ultimately while those responsible for that environment live in luxury, this is a gross injustice and one that should make you feel angry.

The one saving grace and I doubt something you will see reported in the Chron (Chronicle and Echo) was the response by the people of Northampton and beyond. On the same day this was reported Bianca Todd from CCY (Community Court Yard) put a shout out on Facebook to raise money to not only pay off the court fine but provide food for the individual, which was met with great kindness and empathy.

What logic leads our law makers to the conclusion that those struggling to survive and those struggling to make ends meet, even those that are homeless should be fined for acts which take place directly because of that poverty. If you have no money, how can you pay a fine? If you cannot afford basic essentials and basic human needs, then how is a fine going to help that situation?

We live in a society where the poor feel the full force of the law, yet the wealthy can use that wealth to not only influence the law but to hide from it as well. How many bankers have gone to jail for their part in destroying the UK economy in 2008? How many people suffering from poverty have gone to jail as a direct consequence of their actions?

I would like to apologise to and thank everyone that took the time to go down and vote for me on election day, we may not have won but together we can still make a difference.

Firstly me standing in the election was due to the fact the way our community is going did not sit well with me, I wanted to do something about it and I still do. The fact the Tories got returned in both seats with a majority, should not deter us from wanting to change our communities.

While two thousand odd people are happy with the way our villages are turning out, there was still a sizeable chunk of people that were not.

So what is next for us? We need to come together to fight for the community we want to see, in the hope that we can direct and effect the changes that our community needs.

To do this I’m going to set up a community association for Roade, it will require your support and participation. With the community association we can have a positive impact on our community, and together we can do something.

What is a community association? A community association is a non governmental organisation which is made up of members of a community to carry out a specific purpose which is of benefit to said community. It will be an official organisation, and exactly what our role and remit will be, will ultimately be decided by those who wish to engage within it.